“That would be great.” We walk to one of the picnic tables behind the shop, next to the air conditioner. It will make for a noisier meeting, but it seems like Cooper wants some privacy. When we take a seat, he swings his backpack from his shoulders and pulls out his water bottle. He takes a sip while removing a tablet from his backpack, and my mind starts to reel with what he could possibly want from this meeting. “Thanks for meeting with me,” he says.
“Of course. When I got your text, I was tempted to ask Ford what was going on.” I wince. “He showed me your emails this morning.”
Cooper rolls his eyes. “Of course he did. Palmer is such a pain in my ass. She has the baby-sister nagging down to a science. But that’s not why I want to talk to you.”
“It’s not?” I ask, slightly confused.
“No. I want to talk to you about the rebranding for the store.”
“Oh, Cooper. I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I say, my thoughts immediately going to Ford and how angry he’d be about this.
“Hear me out.”
“I don’t know, Cooper. That’s something I think you should talk to your brother about.”
“I tried, but he won’t listen to me.”
“I know, he told me. Ford has his reasons, and I wouldn’t feel right going behind—”
“Please, Larkin,” he pleads. “I need someone to listen to me. He won’t, and I don’t want to get Dad involved, so you’re my next-best option. Just hear me out, okay?”
“I don’t know . . .”
“Larkin.” His eyes, which perfectly match his brother’s, bore into me, pleading, begging. The silver of those irises might belong to someone else, but they have the same effect on me as Ford’s. “Please. Please be the one who listens to me. That’s all you need to do—just listen.”
Damn it.
I look off to the side and try to weigh out my options. I don’t have to do anything. I can just listen like he says and then maybe bring it to Ford. Listening isn’t going to really hurt anything. And from the way he’s pleading so passionately, I know what he has to say must be important. And he’s gone to such great lengths to talk to me, even taking the ferry out here.
“Okay,” I say. “I’ll listen.”
“Really?” he asks, brightening up.
“Yes, but that’s all. Just listening.”
“That’s all I’m asking.” He opens his tablet, excitement in his face as he clicks through a few things. “When I met with Ford, I didn’t get a chance to tell him that for the past year, I’ve been taking digital art classes online.”
“Oh, really?” I ask, surprised.
“Yes. I haven’t been happy at my normal job.”
“So I’ve heard. That nonfiction really killing you?”
“Historical nonfiction. I think we should leave it to Drunk History on the comedy channel and call it a day.”
I laugh. “You know, I did hear school districts are starting to drop history as a class and making kids watch that instead.”
“Now that’s proper education.” We both laugh. “But yeah, the nonfiction editing game isn’t for me. I want more. I’ve always doodled here and there, but one day, I decided to take those doodles to the next level and started taking classes. Come to find out I’m pretty good at it, especially graphic design and branding for companies.”
He puts his tablet in front of me and swipes through his work.
It starts with a simple brand logo for a local beer company. Simple but eye catching, and they only get better. Seattle businesses—bookstores, florists, even an ax-throwing bar—are all represented with bold colors and clean lines.
“Wow,” I say. “You created all of these?”
“Yup. This is a lot of the classwork we had to do. As you can see, there’s some serious growth as the year went on.”
“I love the colors you use and the shading.” I flip through and come to a logo for Cake It Bakery, which I recognize from growing up on the island. “Oh my God, that’s Nora’s bakery. Have you showed her this? It’s so perfect.”
“Yeah, she wants it printed and hung in her bakery.”
“It should be—it’s so cute.” I glance up at Cooper with a smirk. “The boobs are . . . perky.”
He chuckles. “Trust me, they’re accurate.” That statement snags my attention, but I don’t comment on it, opting to store it away for later. Nora and Cooper: I could so see that.
“Well, these are amazing. Which makes me think—did you make some for the rebrand?”
“I did.” He takes the tablet from me and taps another folder. “Now, I have no idea what you guys are going for, but I do know the store, I do know our family, and I thought I might have some insight on what Ford might want. Would you like to see?”
“I’d love to see.”
He sets the tablet in front of me and opens up a file, displaying a half-circle logo. Mountain in the background and then silhouettes of a family with walking sticks and hiking gear, the kids trailing the parents like goslings. It’s modern but has a family feel to it.
“And you can give it a vintage feel too,” Cooper says, flipping to another logo. This one features a new and improved font for the company, which consists of more rigid lines but still has a little bit of whimsy to it, along with the mountains in the background. The colors he chose are appealing, with a teal and light blue with accents of black and gray. It’s everything I suspect Ford has been looking for. “The vintage can go on T-shirts for the younger crowd.”
He flips to another file, showing off different variations, all centered around his family and his parents.
A wave of nostalgia breaks over me as the logo takes me back to the times in my life that brought me pure joy, the times I was with my brother and my dad, hiking through the island trails.
It speaks to the family brand.
I can see my family in this logo.
I can see the Chance family in it.
It’s . . . perfect.
After taking them all in, I lean back in my chair. “Cooper, these are . . . wow, these are incredible.”
“You’re not just saying that?” he asks.
I shake my head, my heart heavy but also filling with excitement. “No. When it comes to the company, I would never lie about anything.” I smile. “I could see my dad wearing a shirt with this logo on it. He would easily wear it with pride.”
Cooper taps the screen, bringing a set of logos into view. “They’re all the same but with slight variations for different generations. I think one of the greatest attributes the company has over the competition is that we started from a family-owned business. Watchful Wanderers isn’t just a store; it’s a brand itself. People love the feeling behind it. It’s like North Face, and people would wear the logo just because it’s well known in the outdoor community, and I do think that’s something the company could do better with—merchandising its own brand. These logos could help jump-start that.”
My mind starts turning and spinning. The possibilities are endless, especially if we have someone on hand who can create merchandise that represents the company so well.